The Cinnamon Apple Quinoa I made represents three things:
1. It's the first time I've eaten or cooked with quinoa, and I'll go ahead and tell you now--I'm hooked.
2. It's my entry for Homegrown Gourmet #6. For this event, bloggers prepare a dish with local ingredients and write a post about it. Isn't that an awesome idea? The theme this time is breakfast, probably one of my top three favorite meals.
3. I'm also using it as my entry for Weekend Breakfast Blogging. This dish fits in nicely with this month's theme of healthy eats and meets all the criteria: nutritious, well-balanced, healthy, vegetarian, and can be served at breakfast. Check, check, and check.

Where do I begin? I purchased the quinoa at Hannaford in the bulk foods section. I got about 2 pounds of the mother grain for less than $3. Nice.

I prepared it as instructed by Canela y Comino--I rinsed two cups of it repeatedly, boiled it until it absorbed the water in the pot, and then let it steam. It's so pretty when it's cooked, wouldn't you agree?

Warning: Be sure you're static-electricity-free when dealing with uncooked quinoa. I learned this the hard way--when pouring it out, it literally leapt out of the bowl and onto my pants and floor. That wasn't fun. (Hallelujah for Dust Busters.)(Thanks, Little Bro.)

I should also mention that my percent yield was about 80%--I lost a lot of the little grains along the way. I hate to waste anything, but those suckers are small and really hard to round up.

Now, what makes this applicable to the Homegrown Gourmet challenge, you ask? Well, after the quinoa was prepared, fluffed, and properly salted, I added 1 cup of cooked apples. Not just any apples, mind you. Homegrown, gourmet apples. Apples from trees in southwestern VA, hand-picked, peeled, chopped, and cooked by my grandpa. They're his very own personal hybrid--there are no other apples like them. They're special.

I also added two heaping teaspoons of cinnamon, my most favoritest spice.

There we have it--Cinnamon Apple Quinoa. Delicious, nutritious, quick, and easy (except for a little static cling.)

Prepare quinoa:
Rinse under cold water until the run-off is clear.
Add to 4 cups of boiling water; add salt.
Reduce heat and let cook until water is absorbed.
Fluff quinoa, replace lid, and let steam for 10-15 minutes.

Add apples and cinnamon and stir to combine.
Eat immediately, because who can wait?

OK, I know I'm late to the game here, but I recently went apple picking and enthusiastically picked wayyy more apples than I can possibly use. I was looking for a healthy recipe to use them in and happened upon this. It's perfect! Question though: How does your grandpa cook apples? I'm a total kitchen novice and have no clue. Would you have to kill me if you divulged the top secret info? I need basics, so if he does anything super special you could omit it. Pleeeeasse?!